It has been about two months since our family experienced an amazing 14-day Caribbean cruise from Guadeloupe. As you may already know if you’ve been planning a trip between New York and Guadeloupe, finding flights can be challenging, depending on the time of year that you are seeking to travel. We are thankful for Norwegian Air that flies non-stop between JFK (New York, USA) and PTP (Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe), seasonally. Our flight to Guadeloupe this March was within Norwegian Air’s PTP season. However, it was a bit more of a challenge to find return flights to New York because we returned after the season ended. Thanks to Air Antilles and JetBlue, it worked out very well for us. I have an entire blog post to assist in planning flights to and from Guadeloupe, here. Norwegian Air flights from New York to Guadeloupe will generally arrive in PTP after 6 PM, which means that, if you’re planning to sail from Guadeloupe, you may want to fly in a day in advance, and that will then require a pre-cruise hotel stay.

We flew into Guadeloupe on Saturday, March 17, 2018, and our ship, the MSC Fantasia, set sail from Guadeloupe on Sunday, March 18, 2018. So, for one night prior to our cruise, we stayed at Canella Beach Hotel. We arrived at Canella Beach Hotel within about 20 minutes of leaving the airport. The front desk staff greeted us warmly, and spoke English quite well, which made check-in very easy. For our family of five, our pre-cruise stay at Canella Beach Hotel, Duplex 322 and 323, was comfortable and convenient.

This was my second MSC cruise and my seventh overall cruise. However this was the 1st time that we had booked a 14-day cruise! Yes, FOURTEEN DAYS! My mom, my husband, my 7-year-old son, my 3-year-old son, and I sailed together on the MSC Fantasia, from March 18, 2018 to April 1, 2018, roundtrip from Guadeloupe to Antigua & Barbuda, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the Dominican Republic, St. Kitts & Nevis, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, and Grenada, with multiple stops in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Kitts & Nevis. We had two Fantastica balcony staterooms on Deck 10, right next to each other: 10208 and 10210. We loved our clean and spacious staterooms! We booked this cruise for the amazing itinerary! I was a bit disappointed when a portion of the itinerary changed – the initial itinerary included Tortola, British Virgin Islands; Dominica; and St. Maarten/St. Martin. After the damage caused by the 2017 hurricane season, those three ports were removed from the itinerary, and, instead, an extra stop in St. Kitts was added, as well as a stop in La Romana, Dominican Republic. We made the best of it! Truly, the itinerary was still FABULOUS! We had a wonderful time! The crew and staff that we dealt with the most, which were our room steward, wait staff and other dining room staff, and the photo team were consistently pleasant and really made this voyage GREAT!

Our family is looking forward to cruising from Guadeloupe on our most port-intensive cruise yet, so I was quite concerned when I realized that the round-trip cost that I was finding for flights between New York City (NYC) and Pointe-a-Pitre (PTP) was over $2000 per person! That doesn’t include checked bags, and we are traveling as a family of five!